Frank Bruni Waxes Poetic on the Teacher Shortage

It must be great to be Frank Bruni. One day you're a food columnist, and the next you're an education expert. Today Frank is all upset about the teacher shortage. After all, his own paper wrote a big story about it. Nowhere did they bother acknowledging that teachers are pretty much under nationwide assault, but hey, why sweat the details when you're writing for the Paper of Record? The fact that they print the column should be good enough for anyone.

As it happens, Bruni himself is a prominent teacher basher. He believes passionately in junk science rating of teachers and can't be bothered to do the most fundamental research. Who cares if the American Statistical Association says teachers change test scores by a factor of 1-14%? What's the big deal if they say use of high stakes evaluation is counter-productive? He knows some guy who likes it and that should be good enough for anyone. Bruni does other important work, like spitting out press releases for Joel Klein's latest book.

But now he's amazed no one wants to be a teacher. Naturally, being a New York Times reporter who has access to pretty much anyone, he goes right to the source, the very best representative of teachers he can muster:

Teachers crave better opportunities for career growth. Evan Stone, one of the chief executives of Educators 4 Excellence, which represents about 17,000 teachers nationwide, called for “career ladders for teachers to move into specialist roles, master-teacher roles.”

“They’re worried that they’re going to be doing the same thing on Day 1 as they’ll be doing 30 years in,” he told me.

This is what Frank Bruni interprets as vision. Let's make one thing clear--Evan Stone is not a teacher. He was for a few excruciating and clearly unrewarding years. But once he learned all he could from that dead end job, he started this glitzy new E4E thing and got his hands on Gates money. Now he gets to make pronouncements to distinguished NY Times reporters like Bruni. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck actually teaching children. Naturally Bruni doesn't ask us what we think. After all, given our obvious lack of ambition, what could we possibly know?

Bruni has gala luncheons to attend, fois gras to critique, and he can't be bothered.  Still just because Evan Stone's E4E got 17, 000 people to sign papers in exchange for free drinks doesn't mean they actually represent those people. I happen to know, for example, a UFT official who signed the paper just to see what was going on at one of those meetings.

In fact, there's no evidence to indicate anything E4E says is based on anything beyond Bill Gates's druthers. Their support for junk science and calls to actually worsen already tough working conditions border on lunacy. Their acceptance of reformy money and embrace of a reformy agenda mean they do NOT represent working teachers.

Here's something no one told Frank Bruni--teachers who want to "get out of the classroom" make the very worst educational leaders there are. How many of us have worked under supervisors who don't love our job, who can't do our job, but who don't hesitate to tell us all the ways we do our job wrong? How many of us know the, "Do as I say, not as I do." mantra well enough it might be tattooed on our foreheads?

Yes, Frank Bruni, there is a teacher shortage. And yes, there are reasons for it. Some reasons are your BFFs like Joel Klein, Campbell Brown, and Gates-funded astroturf groups like E4E. They spout nonsense-based corporate ideas designed to destroy public education and union. You talk to them and can't be bothered with us.

Another big reason is mainstream media, which hires people like you. When people read nonsense like the stuff you write, they may not know that fundamental research is something you consider beyond the pale. They may not be aware that your piece does not entail talking to working teachers. They may think we don't love our jobs and we don't love working with and helping children. They may not know that merit pay, which E4E is pushing in one form or another, has been around for 100 years and has never worked. They may even think that Evan Stone knows what he's talking about.

But he doesn't, Frank. And neither do you. That's why you're a big part of the problem.

McEducation

It seems that in running schools like businesses, many corners have been cut.  Recently we've heard of food providers who won City contracts.  Perhaps they seemed like the best option, but in reality it seems they were cheating their workers.   

Schools have also tried to scrimp and save on sanitation.  Witness the bedlam created in Chicago.   There have been similar stories about situations in L.A. juxtaposed against the iPad fiasco.  Some NY City schools have seen years lean on sanitation, with garbage sitting for days in classrooms, emboldening even the most timid mice.  I once knew a teacher who brought her own broom and disinfectants to teach.  How much more highly effective could one hope to be?

If you've worked at a charter school, you may have seen your school operate more like a business than a public service.  Your school may be a prep machine, get great publicity and shower millions on supporters in Albany while those students who can't cut it get short shrift and shown the door.  Fired without even two-weeks notice!  You may even find time to stage protests during normal school hours with those students who remain.  It's cost-effective!

I'm pretty sure some business-minded individuals would cut corners, de-professionalizing teaching by creating a drive-through education in which "teachers" flip tests for minimum wage, no benefits, and the likes of Pearson rake in the big profits.  Over one billion tests served, but is humanity well-served?

NYSYUT President Karen Mageee Explains How Common Core Enables Life, the Universe, and Everything

In recent debate over the Common Core, NYSUT president, Karen Magee, said:

"I pose the questions to you today: If not standards, then what? A free-for-all? Everyone does what they please? No common base? No common method to look at what they're doing? ... The implementation of the common core in New York was absolutely an embarrassment; we were testing before we were teaching; the materials were not developmentally appropriate. That being said, we have an opportunity."

Magee is absolutely right.  The roll out of the Common Core in NY State was an "embarrassment" of grand proportions.  And, as we all know and can easily agree, we never had standards before the Common Core was handed down to us.  In fact, in delving into my archives, I discovered a picture of our planet pre-Common Core, barren, desolate, dry of ideas and pathetically "standardless."

The Educational Landscape Pre-Common Core:

Common Core made civilization possible.  Now, look how far we have come.

Civilization as it Stands Today, Many Thanks Owed to the Common Core:

Here are some pro-Common Core testimonials to further prove my point:

Testimonial #1:

Testimonial #2:

Testimonial #3:

For these, and many more testimonials in favor of the Core, visit the web address:  illtakebillgatesgrantmoneybutitwontmakemeanylessimpartial.com

Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools

Boys and Girls High School is in trouble. For one thing, it's only graduating 40% of those boys and girls. This makes it look bad, and since there are no excuses for looking bad, there must be steps taken. The step favored by Mike Bloomberg would be to close the school and send all those boys and girls elsewhere.

This was a useful tool to Bloomberg, because once the boys and girls showed up in another building, he could then blame that building and close it too. In fact, he even closed some of the new schools he opened when they failed to produce results. Thus you have an endless stream of failing schools, you close them, open new ones, and nothing whatsoever is your fault. It's a thing of beauty.

Of course when you're closing and opening schools people notice it's not working. It's then necessary to expand the blame. Since nothing whatsoever can ever be your fault, you blame the teachers. Of course you've always blamed the teachers, but now you can take action. You attack their method of layoffs, saying you simply cannot afford to get rid of the new teachers. They are all wonderful and all the experienced teachers suck. The only way to fairly dismiss teachers is to give you absolute power to fire anyone you like, arbitrarily and capriciously. The good thing about that is if you don't get what you want, you can now blame the law.

And that's what's happening in the Vergara case. Kids can't learn because their teachers suck. It's not that they failed to study. It's not that they have learning disabilities. It's not that there's rampant poverty, and it doesn't matter that every single so-called failing school comes from an area of rampant poverty, even though it does. It's not that there are huge learning problems associated with rampant poverty, even though there are. If only we'd hired magical teachers poverty wouldn't matter at all.

This is very convenient for politicians, because it's a real pain in the ass to deal with poverty. That would entail actually helping the people they're elected to serve, and that's a pretty tough thing to do. Better to blame the teachers.

So now, in the US, we have rich people who want to stay that way. They don't want to pay more taxes to help the poor people. Instead they bring high-profile lawsuits so America believes it's the teachers failing our kids. And they really can't lose. If they win, they save big bucks by dumping the teachers who get higher salaries. And if they lose, they can continue to say you see, those teachers suck, and that's why kids aren't graduating from Boys and Girls High School.

And Eva Moskowitz can open charters, screen out the kids who she thinks will fail, and dump the kids who actually do fail. Then she gets a 100% graduation rate, and all the failing kids get dumped back into Boys and Girls High School, or some other public school that can be vilified in the press as failing. It's a win-win!

Except for the actual kids who are failing at Boys and Girls High School, because no one administering an education system has ever lifted a finger to help them.

Alert: $1,000 Signing Bonuses and Delays in Teacher Taste-Testing of Rotten Common-Core Pie

I received two e-mails from UFT President Mulgrew yesterday.  I'm sure he's pretty much trying to allay our fears that we're "totally screwed" before we leave for summer break.  First, in an early morning e-mail sent on behalf of President Mulgrew and Chancellor Farina, I learned that the $1,000 signing bribe bonus will hit our direct deposit before the end of the month.

I know for many, money goes a long way towards buying loyalty.  In my mind, it doesn't come close to making up for the second-class due-process rights of ATRs or the inclusion of merit pay to divide membership.  But, then, call me #151.  After many years of waiting, I wouldn't have minded waiting for something more worthwhile.  I voted, "No."  So, morally, I may not be entitled to that money:  It's "not that I loved the Idea of Working Under a New Contract less, but that I loved True Union Solidarity more."

I received a second Mulgrew e-mail later in the day.  Here's an excerpt:

Dear Arwen,

Governor Cuomo and the State Legislature heard our concerns and have agreed to a two-year pause in attaching high-stakes consequences for teachers to student performance on Common Core-aligned state tests. Everyone recognizes that the Common Core, while the right direction for education, had a terrible rollout. Students aren’t being judged on the Common Core tests and state lawmakers made the smart decision not to judge teachers on those tests either.

Off hand, the news is good.  I was horrified to read Mulgrew's implicit assumption, however.  "Everyone recognizes that the Common Core" is "the right direction for education."  How can he make this claim?  I guess everything to the contrary goes in one ear and out the other.  Does he not know how states are pulling out like it's the plague?  Louisiana pulled out just recently.  I believe only 36 states are still with the CC program.

I don't care how much PD is provided and how many CC-aligned lesson plans are sent along, I don't want the Common Core.  I don't want test companies and data companies profiting off of the misery of little kids.  I don't want to teach to someone's test today, tomorrow or ever, to save myself from professional annihilation--when I already know students living in poverty with language deficiencies and many special needs will never on average surpass the scores of children in wealthy suburbia.

As I think about it, I am sure that America has not so much bought the Common Core as been handsomely paid to adopt it.  As states begin to realize the federal morass in which they are now mired, I am sure many more will agitate for withdrawal.

I have often wondered if all of Bill Gates' money (and all his horses and all his men) had not propped up the Common Core, how far it might have reached.  Bill Gates money has gone every which way, including to the AFT and NEA.  This year, at about the time of the NPE conference in Texas, due to rank-and-file pressure, Weingarten announced the AFT would end its five-year relationship with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The states, as well, jumped on board when offered money.  They stood to gain handsome RttT grants.  They are now realizing that the money will run out and they will be left to foot the big bills for implementation.

I have always believed education should be a reserved power, as the Founders intended.  The states must be in the driver's seat.  I believe the closer education comes to the grassroots, the better it will serve community needs and our larger democracy.  Our federal government already has enough business and thorny issues to keep it occupied.  And, I am very worried about much of that business.  Why would I want our federal government taking on even more?  We are not communist and we are not a dictatorship.  We do not need federal hands in every pie.  In my mind, the Common Core is a recipe for one rotten pie and we would all do well to keep our hands and those of our children clear of it!

Media Mendacity--NY Post Covers the MTA Contract

I'm always amazed at the audacity with which the truth is twisted in our media. The MTA came to an agreement with Governor Andrew Cuomo over a five year contract, and the Post is upset because they view it as costly. Evidently paying people to work is an inconvenience that ought to be avoided at any cost. But here's how the Post sees it:

...the 34,000 TWU members who work for the state-run MTA just got a great deal from Gov. Cuomo: five years’ worth of raises, plus a bunch of new goodies.

That sounds great, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want a great deal? I haven't had a raise in over five years, and I certainly want a great deal. But then you come to this:

...they can expect 8.25 percent raises over the five years between 2012 and 2016. That’s likely to run only slightly behind inflation.

Wait a minute.  It's running slightly behind inflation? I'm not an economist, but doesn't that mean MTA members will effectively be earning less by the end of this contract? I grant that it's only slightly less, but how on earth does making less equal a great deal? I'd have thought earning more would be a better deal, and earning less, even a little less would not be a good deal at all. Yet the Post editorial board thinks it's great. But there's more:

The average transit worker can expect to earn above $75,000 with this $6,000 or so raise — and will only have to pay $400 more in annual health-care costs in return.

So they actually get even less. Sure, 400 bucks a year probably won't fundamentally affect your lifestyle. But when you're already making effectively less money it doesn't particularly help either. Here's another thing that upsets the NY Post:

They’ll now have two weeks’ paid maternity and paternity leave, plus better dental and eye care, as Samuelson said yesterday.

Wow. That's awful. How can we give new parents time with their children? What if everyone had dental and eye care? That would be awful! Why should we encourage working people to take care of their eyes and teeth? How does that help our country? And why should we care whether or not they're healthy? Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?

It's a little scary that if you read this uncritically, you'll think that it's reasonable. If you read David Brooks uncritically, you'll think that Common Core is reasonable. Does anyone seriously believe that the corporate interests that pimp Common Core want our kids to question the bilge that passes for commentary in the Post?

What's reasonable is leaving an America with more, not fewer, opportunities for our children. And that means, at the very least, casting a critical eye on the sloppy nonsense Rupert Murdoch would have us accept as journalism in our beloved US of A.

Examined further at Perdido Street

What You Aren't Reading in Gotham Schools Could Fill a Battleship

I was pretty surprised last summer when Gotham Schools managed to cover Moskowitz rallies at least three times while ignoring a UFT press conference to stop Bloomberg from imposing his destructive policies on his predecessor. When I confronted them about it, they gave me a line about giving their people days off. Evidently, I, as a union advocate, was being petty about their giving immense coverage to one side of a story and none to the other.

Last year I asked whether getting coverage for 100 signatures on a petition was unique to E4E. I was told in the comments that it wasn't, and that anyone could do it. So I made a petition asking for equal consideration for all ESL students when taking the English Regents. A Gotham reporter called me, asked all about the petition, and then proceeded to do nothing whatsoever about it.

When I emailed someone there about their fawning coverage of E4E, I was asked to write a piece explaining why I felt they did not represent the overwhelming majority of working teachers. Not only did they not run it, but they never even responded to it. So as not to waste my time, I modified it and got it published elsewhere. Two weeks ago I had a piece in the Daily News which they failed to link to. I cannot recall reading a single teacher-bashing editorial in the NY Post that didn't make Rise and Shine, including a remarkably ridiculous piece from their favorite E4E/ failed teacher/ current school administrator.

In any case, here's another story that didn't make Rise and Shine today. Apparently, although Gotham felt it important to tell us how much John King hates Buffalo public schools, it's of no consequence that there is dissent among the state Regents. Why bother telling readers that anyone as important as a NY State Regent has issues with Common Core?

Regent Betty A. Rosa wants people to know that her board of 17 members aren't all in agreement about the public education reform agenda that's currently upsetting many parents, teachers and school administrators statewide.

In fact, she thinks the Common Core program is based on incomplete, manipulated data.
"They are using false information to create a crisis, to take the state test and turn it on its head to make sure the suburbs experience what the urban centers experience: failure," said Rosa, a former teacher, principal and superintendent from the Bronx.

Even more egregious, though, is the remarkably one-sided coverage of the Brooklyn version of the John King traveling medicine show. For example, were you relying on Gotham Schools, you would not know that Students First NY was allowed in 30 minutes before the public was told to come, and neither would you know that they were all issued talking points for their two-minute presentations.

Perhaps there was some reason why that did not bear mention. Perhaps the reporters didn't discover this until after other papers. Nonetheless, it's nothing short of disgraceful that they represent themselves as offering balanced coverage, yet fail to tell their readers about the clearly corporate-stacked deck.

They can change their name to Chalkboard NY, but if we continue to get the same one-sided reporting they may as well merge with Fox News.

Padded Cell a Win-Win for KIPP

Sure it's barbaric to keep young children in padded cells. It's clearly a cruel way to treat a child, and it's very tough to see how that is not an abject violation of Chancellor's Regulations against corporal punishment and abuse. Of course, rules are for the little people. Were a UFT teacher to toss a kid in a padded cell, you'd better believe there'd be an investigation, and very likely a removal from the classroom.

But KIPP says they're gonna just keep on tossing kids into padded cells. If they can be believed, which given their ridiculous sense of priorities, I highly doubt, they've only tossed three kids into the padded cell so far. If, in fact, they've only used it three times, why on earth do they even need it? But let's say they're right.

It appears two of the three kids who they admit to placing in the cell are leaving their venerable institution. This means they're headed for public schools. So, basically, all KIPP needs to do to get rid of kids who are troublesome, or kids who don't get scores that make them look good, is to toss them into the handy padded cell. Then they'll be traumatized, their parents will pull them out, and the kids will go to public schools.

If there are problems with the kids, the papers can blame those awful unionized teachers who do nothing but complain. Not only is the KIPP school easier to manage, but whatever problems those kids have can be blamed on the public schools.

Legal expert Campbell Brown is all over the cases of teachers who've been vindicated, some of whom should never have faced charges in the first place. And yet, despite her feigned outrage over cases about which she knows little or nothing, she's spoken not a word about this. Where is her mysterious Transparency Project.

E4E and Students First and all the Astroturfers were out in force the other night, supporting Common Core, a program that's never been field tested anywhere. They were doing cartwheels in support of rating teachers via junk science, and even managed to get almost every speaking spot at King's forum the other night.

Yet they're also completely silent about this outrageous treatment of young children by a charter chain school. Public school teachers would never treat children like this. And never doubt for one moment who really places children first.

It is us, the parents and teachers of public school children, and we dedicate our lives to these kids. We don't take money from Bill Gates. We just love them. That's why we want the same treatment for our kids that John King buys for his, over at the Montessori school.

Oh, the Horror

Charter school operators, who enroll about 6% of the city's students, are recoiling in shock from Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio's decision to represent the other 94% of city schoolchildren in his transition team. Don't they read Gotham Schools? If they did, they'd know that charters should be covered at least half the time, if not all the time.

What is with this guy, including public school parents like Zakiyah Ansari on his team? Doesn't he know she's an advocate for public school children? Mayor Bloomberg never paid the slightest attention to her. Bloomberg knew that what was important was finding ways to pay charter operators three times what the NYC schools chancellor made, and indeed there are now several charter moguls raking in big bucks as a result.

How are Bloomberg's BFFs going to continue hopping onto the gravy train if this trend continues? Are we going to actually spend city funds on public schoolchildren instead? That would be an outrage. Why would entrepreneurs come to NYC if they can't make money off the sweat of our children? It's bad enough we outlawed child labor. Now, just when we're finally figuring how to make money off the little urchins, along comes liberal de Blasio to throw a monkey wrench into the works.

Naturally charter school advocates are outraged. Eva Moskowitz made her kids, their parents, and her at-will employees march in protest. This drew multiple stories from Gotham Schools, and perhaps de Blasio missed them. Gotham, of course, roundly ignores UFT rallies to stop Mayor Bloomberg from pushing his policies onto the mayor-elect, because such rallies are of no importance whatsoever.

Naturally, charter advocates, like Gates and Walmart, want to get their money's worth. That's why they fund Gotham Schools. But if Bill de Blasio won't take their money, how can he represent them.

After twelve years of a mayor who exclusively represented corporate interests like charter schools, a mayor who did whatever he wished on his fake school board, are we going to have a mayor who actually represents the interests of our children and their parents?

What would that New York look like?

Common Core Geniuses and Our Children

Today at Perdido Street School, we see one of the most absurd conceivable uses of Common Core Curriculum--rating classic books by  grade level. Reality-Based Educator quotes another fine publication:

Here’s a pop quiz: according to the measurements used in the new Common Core Standards, which of these books would be complex enough for a ninth grader?

a. Huckleberry Finn
b. To Kill a Mockingbird
c. Jane Eyre
d. Sports Illustrated for Kids' Awesome Athletes!
The only correct answer is “d,” since all the others have a “Lexile” score so low that they are deemed most appropriate for fourth, fifth, or sixth graders. This idea might seem ridiculous, but it’s based on a metric that is transforming the way American schools teach reading.

It's almost inconceivable anyone would dream to rate books this way, but in 2013, in the United States of America, Bill Gates thinks it's a good idea. Therefore Arne Duncan and Reformy John King also think it's a good idea, and unless you're a "special interest," like a teacher or parent, you should too. I'm not trained in Common Core and am therefore an ignorant galoot who doesn't appreciate anything, but I'm a pretty avid reader. There's a quote that I heard as a child that has stayed with me for a long time:

Any damn fool can get complicated. It takes a genius to attain simplicity.
~Woody Guthrie

To me, this means if you can communicate with a large group of people you're doing a better job than you are if only few people understand, or care to understand you. There's a reason people still sing This Land Is Your Land decades after Woody's death, and that reason has nothing to do with the amount of large words Woody chose to insert. There's a reason people will still read To Kill a Mockingbird years after the silly sports book has been forgotten.

But alas, to the geniuses who invented Common Core, the qualities that make a work classic are of no consequence whatsoever. The important thing is to use as many unfamiliar, archaic and difficult words as possible. Because to them, the more tedious crap a kid can manage to slog through, the better a student it makes the kid. I've had multiple parents of young children tell me this year, the first of Common Core around here, their kids who used to love to read now cry at night and fake being sick in the morning to avoid school. That's a shame.

It's our job to inspire children, to make them love life, to make them appreciate what we have to offer so they themselves can offer something someday. Common Core doesn't understand that. A favorite book series of mine is The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency. It uses simple language, and manages to convey wisdom and humor while doing so. I've been able to teach it to ESL students, who loved it.

If you can trick kids into loving reading, they'll be more likely to read on their own, and to excel even when they need to slog through the tedious crap we all have to encournter. I went to college and had my fair share of professors who made me purchase books of awful essays just because they happened to have written one. I did what I had to do, got through the coursework, and sold or tossed the unmemorable volumes.

But that was only because I grew up in a house full of novels and mystery books. I read whatever my parents left lying around, and it was almost invariably more interesting that whatever my teachers prescribed. Kids without this advantage need teachers who will give them high-interest reading, not arbitrary crap deemed to be their level simply because it contains a lot of words.

It's tragic that ignorant, unimaginative non-educators are now dictating what our children will do in school. Is this really making them college-ready? More likely it's making them Walmart-Associate ready, or why would Gates, Walton, and Broad be ponying up for this crap?

They don't use it on their kids.

Why in the hell are we tolerating their experiments with ours?

It's Not Who You Know. It's Whom You Know

For several weeks now, I've been writing about the new program my school has been using to keep track of student data. It's called Skedula, and it's largely unpopular in my building. It just seems like you always need to do three things instead of one. Furthermore, though most of my colleagues use ipads, there is no ipad app. The rep came to our school several weeks ago, and assured us we'd have one in two weeks. Now I hear the real roll out date is sometime in December.

If that's the case, Skedula ought to refund half of whatever they charged us. If they knew their program wouldn't serve our needs and sold it to us based on an app that wasn't even out yet, shame on them.

But there are other questions I have. For one, I'm hearing schools Mayor Bloombucks tried to close were required to use Skedula. Perhaps this program was seen as having the ability to make ESL students speak English and special ed. students overcome any and all disabilities. Or perhaps someone thought it was a good idea for its parent company, Datacation, to make money. I mean, sure, it's not Eva Moskowitz, but it's always important for The Right People to make money. Of course I'm not talking about educators, the only city employees Mayor Bloomberg did not see fit to give an 8% raise for the 2008-2010 bargaining round.

Another thing I wonder, and this appears verified by Skedula itself, is how on earth they got access to STARS, the DOE database usually open only to administrators. I know for a fact that other programs do not have this access. At my school, in order to use Daedalus, administrators constantly had to do updates within the building. How did Skedula get an automatic connection?

So, with favored treatment, and a seriously flawed system, one wonders whether Skedula is the Next Big Thing. For example, I've read that ARIS, the 80-million dollar boondoggle our financial wizard of a mayor is about to trash in favor of a yet-undetermined state system. Is Skedula as crappy as ARIS? So far, I'd say yes. And were it to be imposed statewide, like an epidemic, I've no doubt Andrew Cuomo, the student lobbyist, and his merry band of hedge fund magnates/ education experts could endeavor to make it even worse.

Because when it comes to pointless nonsense, no one takes a back seat to Cuomo and Bloomberg. That's a good thing, because given their massive egos, there won't be room in the back seat of the largest, ugliest Hummer limo in the great state of New York.

Teacher Union Prez Auditions for NY Post Editorial Board

Joseph Del Grosso, head of the Newark Teachers Union, is endorsing a new contract that entails merit pay, value-added measures, and which is "secretive about financial details," though we know it hinges on $100 mill in Facebook bucks, which we don't know to be renewable.

Del Grosso is portrayed in the article as someone who's moved from a young firebrand to someone with a completely different position-- heroic by the writer's highly uninformed point of view, but questionable at best by mine. More disturbing, perhaps, is this quote:

“The teachers who come in early and stay late, and take the job seriously, are offended by the teachers who don’t,” he says. “They are the silent majority, and I think they will overwhelmingly vote for a contract that involves them in their own destiny.”

Can you imagine the things these offended teachers must be saying?

That damn Ms. Smith, always going home to look after her baby!

I hate Mr. White. Who the hell does he think he is, running to his second job at the carwash at 2:30 every day?

I'm a teacher who comes in early and stays late, but I certainly don't go around telling anyone else to do that. For me, it's a matter of convenience, avoiding traffic, and doing things that are more efficiently done on school grounds. Were I an administrator, I would not presume to judge a teacher by hours in building, quantity, but rather by what's accomplished in the classroom, quality.

It's quite disturbing to see a union head suggest that teachers ought to work for free, and that whether or not they choose to do so is indicative of the quality of their work. It's further disturbing to see Nixon invoked in his use of the term "silent majority." This was a rationale used by a criminal to support clearly failed policies.

Also disturbing is the possibility that teacher pay will be linked to whether or not they are "effective," and that their degree of effectiveness will be determined by something as inane as value-added, which has proven disastrous in other venues, most recently Florida. The article writer, apparently unaware of the difference between reporting and editorializing, offers this tidbit:

Workers in the private sector take it for granted that their performance will affect their pay, and that if they screw up badly, they will be fired. Teachers, like many other public employees, have been protected against that harsh, real-world stuff.

This, of course, assumes that teachers are never fired, an utter fallacy. It also fails to consider that value-added has no validity whatsoever. There is a lot of talk about teachers having "a seat at the table," but I heard that talk before the UFT got involved with Bill Gates' MET project, notions of which have been imposed on most of the country well before there was sufficient evidence to do so.

This contract has the "blessing of Gov. Chris Christie." If anyone reading this thinks Christie has the interests of teachers, students, or parents at heart, I can give you a very good price on a bridge in Brooklyn.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Actually, in the case of unions, it probably doesn't matter whether the deed was good, bad or otherwise. The editorial pages made up their minds long ago.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote an opinion piece in the Daily News, explaining that it is, in fact, Bloomberg who's blocking the much-vaunted evaluation system that we've all been reading about. Mulgrew correctly points out that there is a framework, and that he was instrumental in establishing it.

UFT sources have told me that Bloomberg is still angry that 13% of working teachers will be able to get fair hearings to appeal ineffective ratings, and therefore won't act toward making it happen. I believe that. It's ironic, because personally, I'm more upset about the 87% of the teachers who won't get a fair hearing.

So Mulgrew put out an olive branch, and told the truth. What does he get for his efforts? Well, this looks like a slap in the face from the News editorial board. The News editorial is superficial, and unpersuasive to anyone who knows the facts, but who knows how many News readers know the facts? There's a larger point here.

It doesn't pay to give in to the "reformers." Give them an inch, and they complain you still have one yourself. The plan to "reform" teacher evaluations is a great case in point. By capitulating to the idiocies perpetrated by Education Secretary/ DFER Stooge Arne Duncan, NY teachers will now be judged by VAM, which is nothing more than junk science. Hundreds of DC teachers have been fired on precisely this basis, and bringing this to our state will benefit no one but those wishing to see more teachers randomly fired.

Precisely how are evaluations improved by adding junk science to the mix? "Reformers" want to fire as many teachers as possible, and this will certainly allow them to hit some they wouldn't get otherwise. The union complains, justifiably, that supervisors can be arbitrary or vindictive when rating teachers. Is there a perfect system? Probably not. Is there a better one. Probably.

But here we are, in 2012, discussing whether it's 20%, 25%, 40%, or even 100% junk science we will use to evaluate the people who teach our children. How much, precisely, do you think junk science will help us to do that?

This Is Why I'm a Teacher

I was giving placement tests to incoming ESL students, and a young woman came in with her sister, who'd just gotten here. She said she had graduated from our school recently, and asked about one of my young colleagues. I told her I was sorry, she wasn't here, but why not leave a note? I gave her a piece of paper and she began writing, all excited.

When my colleague got back, I told here there was a note for her. She pulled it out of her mailbox and looked that the smiley faces on its folded cover, and began to resemble them. The note said thank you for all you did for me, thank you for helping me with English, I'm in college now, and concluded asking my colleague to pray for her. I hoped that was out of some religious conviction rather than some sense of hopelessness, but we'll never know.

Nonetheless, my colleague was thrilled, as happy as I've ever seen her. She said, simply, "This is why I'm a teacher." I don't suppose Bill Gates would understand that. Nor would the disingenuous sycophants who leave teaching, take Gates money and flock to astroturf groups like E4E. But I know exactly how she felt. Notes like those mean more than observations from administrators. I treasure them. And the fact is, most of us are moved far more by things like that than getting a few extra bucks for raising test scores.

That's not to say we don't want money. It's atrocious that demagogues like Mike Bloomberg publicly claim to care about education, but actually issue raises to all city employees but educators. We know how little regard he has for us, and how much he cares about stuffing the pockets of entrepreneurs like Eva Moskowitz and Geoffrey Canada. Next month will be four years we've gone without a contract. It's very tough to be treated with such vicious contempt by those who, ostensibly, are your employers.

But we still know what it's all about. We still love the kids. And as our brothers and sisters in Chicago have shown, ultimately it is we, the teachers, who won't back down.

Journalism, American Style

On Saturday I watched Diane Ravitch's interview on CNN. The interviewer, fancying herself clever, read a poorly written student paper and challenged Ravitch about the state of education. How can education be effective if one single student writes poorly? That would be like me asking how journalism can be effective if one single interviewer asks an incredibly stupid question. Alas, it was not a single question, but a series of them, in a pattern that's replicated widely.

The interviewer asked question after question designed to show how there was no defense for our system, and Ravitch calmly refuted every preposterous assertion behind these questions. In fact, the stupidest of the questions were left out, so as not to make CNN look any more ridiculous than it already did.

Contrast Ravitch's interview with that of Michelle Rhee, who was permitted to spout whatever nonsense struck her fancy, unchallenged. CNN could not be bothered to look beyond the surface of the "reform" narrative for that. In a patently idiotic move, they decided to assert this narrative as absolute truth when confronting Ravitch. This strongly suggested that they hadn't even bothered to read her writing.

Meanwhile, in the NY Times, former food columnist Frank Bruni turned his gourmet eye to education, spitting out arguments right out of the Rhee playbook. This is the paper of record, the state of the art, and I don't think it's much of a boast to say that education bloggers know far more than Bruni about what's going on, no matter how many fancy restaurants he may have reviewed. No stars for him.

Even more frightening is this--here's one area I happen to know about. If you rely on news from CNN, the Times, or any other MSM news outlet, and see how lazy they are in this area, it's not a huge leap to imagine their reporting on national and international issues is equally shoddy. That we accept abject nonsense to dictate how we educate our children strongly suggests that we accept equally shoddy info to dictate how we run our government.

And we don't need a standardized test to determine how little value journalism like this contributes to these United States of America.

Yes, Virginia, There Are Good Meetings

I spent last weekend at SOS 2012, surrounded by people who are passionate about education, people who look beyond the headlines, people who do not take preposterous nonsense at face value. This ought to be status quo, but when you consider that even the New York Times runs editorials that don't consider, let alone bother themselves with fundamental research, it's far rarer than it should be.

When you're with a group of well-informed people seeking real solutions to real problems, real discussions ensue. You learn that democracy is not precisely getting to choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum once every four years. You learn that there is a lot of give and take and coming to a consensus, you learn to listen, consider, compromise, and seek the best answer for the largest group of people. It's not precisely the narrow concept we still teach our children.

You also learn that the discussion does not entail how we can best enact the latest idiotic fancy of Bill Gates, recycled by our billionaire mayor. Somehow, when dozens of teachers are sitting around hearing the latest way to save their school from a groundless closing, it doesn't inspire the sort of spirit that enhances the esprit de corps.

I tend to dread meetings. Many revolve around the latest trendy silver bullet. This is the only way to do it, and the way we told you to do it last year is complete garbage. We all know that next year they'll tell us what they said this year was complete garbage, and that there will be yet another formula. Or perhaps they'll bring back something from five years ago and tell us no, it turns out it wasn't complete garbage after all.

Sometimes meetings are about how kids shouldn't be late. It's bad, and it's not good, and therefore we shouldn't tolerate it. Continue along those lines for forty minutes, and you have an idea of how tedious and mind-numbing this exercise can become.

It's not always the fault of administrators. They're contractually required to put on these meetings, whether or not they have anything to say. But here's the thing--if they are well-informed, smart and caring, they can actually do things of value, and help kids. Understandably, that's a high hurdle when they work for people imposing baseless nonsense on them, us, and the kids we're sworn to serve.

File Letter

Dear Ms. Walker:

On May 15th, we met in my office with you and your representative, UFT chapter leader Mr. Rosenboom. We discussed the fact that, despite Common Core standards, you persist in teaching  literature in your English class. As we discussed, Common Core standards mandate that no more than 25% fiction be taught in the classroom.

You freely admitted having taught several novels, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Kite Runner and The Joy Luck Club. You further stated you'd taught various poems, and several Shakespeare plays, though these were not included in the list of suggested materials. I suggested you select from our fine selection of non-fiction works, including The History of Cement, or 1 Million Tedious Essays that No One Wants to Read.

You flatly refused, and referred to me as an "ignorant troglodyte." You then stood up and angrily called me a "killjoy," a "Philistine," and a "corporate tool," among other things. Despite Mr. Rosenboom's repeated entreaties to sit down, you continued standing and screamed uncontrollably at me for at least another 20 minutes, frightening the secretaries gathered outside my office and effectively disrupting the flow of our meeting.

You claimed your students enjoyed these works of literature and were inspired by them. You went on about how this student and that related to the stories, was touched by this or that, cried at the book's conclusion, and made other statements of varied levels of irrelevance. I must point out that we are here neither to promote enjoyment, enrich understanding,  nor to inspire children. We are here to produce test scores, and if we do not produce sufficiently good test scores we will likely be closed and replaced by half a dozen small schools or charter schools.

It is our policy at Preposterously Overcrowded High School to follow the Common Core standards, no matter how incomprehensible, irrational or counter-intuitive they may be. Please be advised that further forays into teaching of literature may result in stronger disciplinary measures, including termination, public humiliation via the New York Post, or whatever other measures Mayor Bloomberg may see fit to institute.

Sincerely,


S. Fields, Principal
c. T. Fields, Assistant Principal, English
c. A. Rosenboom, UFT chapter leader


Please sign and return one copy of this letter.


___________________________
I have received a copy of this letter and understand it will sit in my file for three years or until I am removed for the value added test scores of my students, whichever comes first.

Obama to Teachers--Drop Dead

To show how much he appreciates the endorsements of NEA and AFT, President Barack Obama declared this week, Teacher Appreciation Week, to be National Charter School Week. So all you public school teachers wasting your time with kids who don't speak English, kids who have special needs, kids who need alternate assessment, and all the other kids who don't improve the test scores can go straight to hell. The President has taken your week and given it to Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee and the Walmart family.

In fact, this President does not appreciate teachers. Otherwise, why would he push for value-added/ junk science evaluation methods that depend as much on chance as on skill? Why would he applaud the firing of an entire staff of teachers (that largely served ESL students)? And for goodness sake, how on earth could he tolerate a Secretary of Education who declared Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in NOLA?

President Obama takes us for granted, as well he should. We endorsed him solely because we've determined his opponent is even worse. Were I a union bigshot, urging you to vote for him, I'd need to say, "Vote for him, because he doesn't stink as badly as the other guy!" Or perhaps I could say, "Vote for Obama! Next to the other guy, he appears almost adequate."

These are hardly slogans that make me jump up and down. Obama fooled me once. Shame on him for that. And far more shame on him for disrespecting every working teacher in America just to kiss up to his corporate buddies. Those who teach our children ought to be celebrated rather than reviled.

Have you got a message for this President?

Michelle Rhee's Greater New York Flat Earth Society

Michelle Rhee has brought her spectacular "Students First" program to New York. This is significant because, with only billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor 1% Cuomo to push endless "reform," it needs more representation. So she's started a group! After all, if Mayor4Life declines his right to change the law again and buy a fourth term, it's possible a candidate who is not insane may emerge.

So Rhee has gathered a bunch of CEOs, whose education expertise, like that of renowned expert Bill Gates, stems from the millions of dollars they've managed to accumulate. Of course she's recruited Joel Klein, who presided over the spectacular rise in NYC test grades that later proved to be completely unfounded, not to mention the no-bid contract from Alvarez and Marsal that left schoolchildren shivering on the coldest day of the year, waiting for buses that never arrived. He also managed to close hundreds of schools he claimed were failing. The fact that these schools invariably had high concentrations of high-needs students was neither here nor there. Joel Klein has a no excuses POV, and he made none as he blamed unionized teachers for absolutely everything that troubled these schools.

Another important achievement of Joel Klein's was to establish a two-tier school system. Charter schools, largely unburdened by those nasty union contracts, were established. And his BFF, Eva Moskowitz, sits on the committee. After all, if she doesn't get a pro-"reform" mayor, it might be her schools relegated to basements, rather than the public school kids. Klein himself sent his kids to private schools, with class sizes under 15. For regular New Yorkers, they can enter a lottery and hope for the best. Why bother fixing schools when you can just close them, shuffle kids all over the city, and then close them some more?

Then, of course, he resigned, took one of the pensions he claims teachers shouldn't get, and took a high-paying gig with media mogul and master propagandist Rupert Murdoch.

Of course they needed a teacher, to legitimize their enterprise. So where else would they go but E4E, which takes Gates money to support every darn "reform" that comes down the pike. And the teacher they selected comes from an F-rated school. I suppose it's good to hedge your bets so that if Mayor Bloomberg closes your school, you can score some cushy gig with Gates or Rhee while your colleagues shuffle all over the city as ATRs (who E4E thinks should be fired).

And the darndest thing about this whole club is this--none of their ideas--value-added, merit pay, charter schools, firing teachers for the hell of it--have actually proven to help anyone or anything but the bottom line. If I were chancellor, a real one rather than a pawn of the mayor, I'd move to reduce class sizes, retain experienced teachers, and teach kids in real classrooms rather than trailers and closets. But I'm a dreamer.

Still, my ideas, unlike those of Rhee and her corporate whores, are not for sale to the highest bidder.

Effective Teachers Make Kids Produce

Stuyvesant teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein had a great op-ed yesterday in the Daily News. He says that any teacher who does not receive a favorable score on "objective measures," or VAM tests must be rated ineffective in NY state. Therefore, though VAM is stated to be 40% of evaluation, it actually counts for 100, unlike any other state that's jumped on the baseless BS bandwagon.

He also says, like Michael Winerip did in more detail, that a good teacher could easily receive a bad rating. I'm now getting email from people who seem to assume I personally wrote and negotiated this law, which is pretty odd. I've explicitly opposed it for years. I can only fault the emails from the union for failing to point out that I did not. I will say, though, that the UFT's Q and A did not manage to A any of my Qs.  Rubenstein and Winerip have thus far done a much better job.

I don't think there's much credence in calling yourself a good teacher, as you're likely the least credible and most prejudiced source in the world. I will say, though, that no one has called me a bad teacher in a long time. Of course that could change if my students, none of whom are fluent in English, perform poorly on tests that have not yet been designed. However, if history is any judge, I expect they'll be designed for native speakers. Who knows what the great and powerful Regents will pay test companies to design for my colleagues who teach special education?

While I still love my job and look forward to going in every day, I've got almost 27 years in. So probably I cannot be dumped for no reason until I hit 30, and I'm grateful for that. Nonetheless, the spectre of the sword of Damocles hanging over my head, and that of every working teacher is particularly unsettling. It will not help any of us perform better, and it will not help any student learn better. There will be incredible pressure to do well on these stupid tests, and it's incredible that the President of the United States, who inspired and enabled this nonsense through Race to the Top, would have the audacity to say we need to stop teaching to the test.

Actually, NY teachers had better start teaching to the test if they wish to keep their jobs. And while I don't want to retire, that's the sort of thing that might make me do it anyway. And while I have sent my kid to public school, were she entering school this year I'd think carefully about that as well.

I don't want my kid subject to test prep 24/7. And neither does Obama, Bloomberg, or Klein. That's why they send their kids to private schools, where they avoid all the nonsense they support for other people's kids.